Imperator Impressions

Spiffy:

Iffy:

Still many unanswered questions: namely, how crafting and PvP will
work.

The Imperator build on display at E3 is essentially a much refined version of what was shown at Mythic's pre-E3 press event a couple of months back. Elements that were only partially implemented when we last saw it were in much more polished states this time around, and there was a whole new character class playable -- the biomedic, a healing class with an offensive kick that's hard to deny. Using a freshly rolled biomedic, we touched down on the war-ravaged paradise of Terra Nova, and engaged in some old fashioned questing.

For a game that's so early in development, Imperator sure has a lot of stuff to do. As mentioned in our previous coverage, Terra Nova serves as the game's starting area, and if these early versions we've been playing are any indication, there will be more than enough content to push you through the first ten or so levels. After you complete the first quest chain, in fact, you can immediately access any of the quests that your level qualifies you for directly from the game's interface. When we played it, we were able to accumulate more than a dozen quests in our log within 15 minutes of play, which is way more than we could hope to clear in the span of an E3 demo. But it's good to know that the content is in there nonetheless.

The first few quests are quite rudimentary. They're actually identical -- albeit tweaked and refined -- to the ones we described in our first hands-on preview of the game. We only treaded new ground after we finished that first chain. Specifically, we embarked on a quest that lead us to one of the game's instanced areas. Yeah, it was low-level, and thus fairly self-contained and easy to complete, but it gave us a definite feel for what Mythic is thinking in regards to this kind of content. The mission had us infiltrating a Mayan-occupied bunker in order to flush the invaders out, and repair the busted power generators contained therein. The progression was pretty straightforward: upon entering rooms, our character would get attacked by crazed custodian robots. After clearing enough rooms, we got to the central hub where the generators were located. The few enemies in there were cleared without incident, and this allowed us to "repair" (read: click on) the generators in relative peace. After they were all fixed, we were instructed to blow the joint? but not before dealing with the Mayan guards that managed to materialize while I was busy clicking on generators.

The biomedic's abilities are deceptively suited to dispatching enemies, despite how support-focused its job description suggests it will be. Its damage output -- courtesy of a sort of lethal tranq-gun -- isn't too high, but what it lacks in brute force, it makes up for in damage-over-time attacks, and survivability. Compared to the level of the enemies in the noob area, the biomedic's DOTs were actually quite powerful, and the healing ability we got access to after our first level-up kept our health up in most engagements. Overall, this kind of performance bodes well for the soloability in Imperator -- if a "healer" class can kick some ass, so to speak, then those who favor the solitary game don't have much to worry about.

Imperator is a game that demos really well. What we know about the setting is really exciting, but more importantly, when you see the game in motion, you're actually sold. The looks is beautiful and immersive, and the game mechanics that are shaping up around it seem to be of similar level of quality. We can't wait to see more of it.